Maybe we should reconsider how we've been living our lives and how we wish to spend our hard-earned money and how we wish to die...

It's funny the things that enter your mind while performing mundane tasks such as grinding flaxseeds...  It was the vague image of a Vermont or New Hampshire town I may have been passing through with my mother and Joe or my mother and Bruce or with Sue or with Michelle or with Randi...  But, for some reason I thought of that ski trip with my mother and Joe to Attitash in New Hampshire returning to Rhode Island and eventually to Branchburg.  Everytime we made a pit-stop for gas or something else, I jumped out of the car and called Francesca... I remember having become horribly impatient with their slowness to continue down the road and I started walking... However, aside from the walking, what struck me while grinding the flaxseeds was how I "spent" at least $250 on my mother's phone card calling Francesca in New Jersey that weekend...  When the phone bill came the following month my mother was livid...  And I ignored her.  Looking back 29-30 years, I completely understand how my mother should have felt.  I can't imagine what the others with us during the trip thought... Or I can imagine that too...  I was miserable and I imagine I made the others miserable who were near me.  But, I didn't want to be there.  I wanted to be nearer Francesca.  Or I was living a projection upon myself of how I would have felt had she gone away for the weekend... and I couldn't relax and accept having "done" that to her.  Ethics of a 16-year-old boy... who didn't appreciate having been left behind, which translates in not wishing that for his girlfriend...  I believe greatly in "do unto others as you would wish done unto you"... and I didn't want to do unto Francesca what I wouldn't wish for myself... Not knowing that she may not have suffered a moment my being away on a weekend ski-trip...

But, what about my mother's phone card?  That's a strange enigma.  Kind of like pinning down the actual year and age of that event...  I imagine I was 16-years-old...  Or, more probably I was 15-years-old.  I wasn't working yet.  I started at the age of 15 turning 16 and worked that winter for Mr. Saydek's laboratory glass blowing plant around the corner...  Or was that the following winter right before I started driving?  

In any case, I certainly didn't understand the value of $250+ and what it took for my mother to earn them and what other bills they could have paid.  And, yes, I am sure that I could have invented a whole bunch of justifications for why she should pay for my telephone obsession with Francesca; living a "life" waiting for a permanent profound and committed relationship with someone who will not leave or disappear...  Beware of the things you wish for...

When I committed to Margarita in the Spring of 2003, I vowed that I wouldn't return to the U.S. until she could enter with me legally.  I haven't set foot out of Mexico since August of 2003 when we visited Guatemala for renewing my tourist visa...  

But it's been a good life for me... here with Margarita.  And I don't waste money on useless phonecalls to her...  But, truthfully, it's been a very constructive marriage...  

When I thought of the name for this thought process, I was thinking that I had better things to do than write about the fallout of loss obsession... such as continuing my research on what foods cause the dumping of insulin in the blood stream and the subsequent affects upon metabolism and health...  

The issue of Diabetes Mellitus may not only be about elevated glucose in the blood stream (consumption of refined carbohydrates), but it may be further exacerabated by elevated consumption of protein.  Too much insulin is the problem; not just high proportion of carbohydrates in your diet.  Since the pancreas responds to both the injestion of carbohydrates and protein by dumping insulin into the blood stream in order to move the glucose and the amino acids into the cells for energy (glucose) and for construction/repair (amino acids), over-consumption of glucose and protein will lead to over-secretion of insulin and over time, the cells develop an intolerance to insulin and the glucose (instead of being converted into energy) is converted to triglycerides and stored as fat...  However, stored fat is not energy, causing hunger and increased food consumption (in this case, typically carbohydrates), leading to increased secretion of insulin and increased cell intolerance to insulin and less glucose entering the cells. 

You may say, "but, why doesn't the body burn the stored fat for energy?"

Aside from being one of the main hormones responsible for metabolism of energy (sending glucose into the hungry cells), insulin was created for protecting us from starvation during difficult winters and times of famine.  As long as insulin is in the blood stream, fatty acids stay put within the muscle cells and adipose (fat) tissue; meaning that all energy metabolism is from glucose.  However, between meals, especially between dinner and breakfast, when the level of insulin in the blood has dropped, the fat cells break down the triglycerides and release the fatty acids into the blood stream for being consumed as energy by other cells in the body...  

The problem with Diabetes Mellitus is that the Pancrease is functioning and dumping insulin into the bloodstream.  However, the cells are blocking its entrance; meaning that glucose nor fatty acids are being burned and organs begin failing, and energy levels decrease, while hunger increases, sending more glucose into the bloodstream.  

Glucose damages nerve endings leading to peripheral neuropathies and blindness.  Excess triglycerides (overwhelmingly from refined carbohydrates) transported in the small VLDL cholesterol molecules clog veins and arteries leading to heart disease/arteriosclerosis/kidney disease, varicose veins in the legs (leading to tissue death leading to gangrene leading to amputations), aneurisms and strokes.  Excess glucose in the bloodstream also contributes to AGEs that cause the drying of the tear-ducts like the hardening of arteries, leading to AGE-formed catyracts/brittleness of the cornea and blindness in 1 in 4 diabetics...  

But, what concerns me most about insulin (original with carbohydrates and now also with protein) is that cancer cells have at least 30 times more insulin receptors than do healthy cells...  Why? 

Because cancer lives off glucose.  

My younger sister and I both inhereted my "father"'s gene for Familial Poliposis/Gardner's Syndrome.  I supposedly got it much worse judging by the polyps blanketing my rectum and large intestine, my benign cysts, osteomas, lipomas and skin tags...  

My younger sister is bumble bee or a hummingbird and is a sugar addict.  From an early age, I generally avoided sweets and never had her incredible energy level.  

By the age of 15 Beth had 9 cavities in her mouth.  But the age of 45, I had had only 1 cavity...

Beth developed Thyroid Cancer at the age of 26 and Rectal Cancer at the age of 43.  I've never had cancer...  

But it's not just about a sweet tooth. It's also about being a carbohydrate "addict"...  And thinking about what is called liquid lightning sugar (alcohol), at the age of 16, Beth could down a liter bottle of Absolute Vodka in almost one gulp and just the smell of alcohol at the age of 21 would make me feel nauseous.  

No one wants to hear this stuff...  Maybe they would prefer I return to obsessing about Francesca or Anya or Joey.  And, yes, it was a great waste of time, energy and money.  But, I'm still alive.

At any time you could have a cell or a few hundred thousand cells splitting into mutated cancer cells instead of their committing their supposed programmed suicide when something goes wrong genetically.  You have cancer.  But, as long as those cancer cells haven't yet multiplied sufficiently for forming a visible and diagnosable tumor, your immunological system still has the opportunity for destroying the cancer...  You may very well have cancer at this moment and the next moment no...  

It really doesn't matter what caused the development of cancer... it could have been so much from something in the water or in the vegetables or in the air or in the paint or in the plastic containers you use to guard your left-overs or the Zip-lock bags or the cans of tomato paste or or or or MONSANTO...  or my father's genes...  It may be all of the above.  It may be you are ticking bomb and you must die some given day.  However, maybe your incredibly "intelligent" and sophisticated organic "technology" of your body has taken care of the problem today or yesterday...  

But, what if some of your cells (your cancer cells are also yours; they aren't outside invaders like viruses or bacteria, although bacteria doesn't invade, it is transported into your body, probably by unknowing you....) changed and became malignant and escaped the view of an oncologist or overwhelmed your immunological systems and were supplied by an incredible supply of glucose in the bloodstream?

Look...  if you still have your eyes open...  There is a cure for cancer that is more affective than chemo or radiation therapy.  And it's incredibly logical:  Starvation. 

Not starvation of you, but of the cancer cells.  What do they eat?  Glucose and nothing else.  Decrease you injestion of carbohydrates until it is guarranteed that you aren't leaving an excess of glucose in the blood stream...  Truthfully, you don't need carbohydrates for living.  Your body metabolizes fat and protein for energy in the absence of glucose.  Plus, fatty acids and amino acids are used together for building tissue and cell membranes.  Amino acids are what hormones (including insulin) are comprised of.  Glucose?  Energy.  Nothing more...

So, why not work towards preventing the cancer horror and decrease your refined carbohydrate intake?

Did you know that women with Diabetes Mellitus have a 200% increased risk of developing breast cancer, uterine cancer, and ovarian cancer?

Blood sugar and insulin levels have also been connected with rectal cancer and colon cancer. 

Maybe we should reconsider how we've been living our lives and how we wish to spend our hard-earned money and how we wish to die...  

Just as there are more important things than the time spent or not spent with a girlfriend, there are more important things than being able eat another slice of pizza or apple pie... tomorrow